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Julian Nagelsmann: »It's a tightrope walk«
Photo:
ANNEGRET HILSE / REUTERS
To see how good the coach Julian Nagelsmann is, all you need is a look at Leipzig.
Last season RB was runner-up with Nagelsmann, conceded the fewest goals from all Bundesliga clubs, and kept up well in the games against champions Bayern Munich (3: 3, 0: 1).
Nagelsmann is now in Munich and has beaten ex-club Leipzig 4-1.
RB have lost three of their first four league games, which is more than in the entire first half of last season.
If things go bad, the club ends the matchday in 15th place.
Jesse Marsch, the man who followed Nagelsmann in Leipzig, sat in the press conference after the game on Saturday evening and studied a piece of paper.
On it were the statistics to 1: 4.
Marsch's team had a little more possession of the ball, the same good pass rate as the opponent, but the goal shot ratio was 10:18.
"We are trying to implement a new idea of football to some extent," said the march from RB Salzburg a little later.
Before this weekend, he told the team that it might not be fair to face opponents like Bayern Munich so early in the season.
"Maybe we are not ready for such challenges yet."
Nagelsmann sat a few meters away and looked at Marsch.
You couldn't tell what he was thinking from his face.
Poker face.
When Nagelsmann was new to Leipzig, he did something similar to Marsch now: he turned his team's game inside out.
He expanded RB's pressing style to include long periods of ball possession, on average the team under him achieved almost ten percent more possession than before.
He challenged his players with strange systems.
Also changed the formations during the games.
But now, in Munich, the soccer teacher is holding back.
In Leipzig he let his team play in a 4-2-3-1.
Thomas Müller played a role as a mixture of second striker and ten.
Left-back Alphonso Davies stormed up and down the wing, right-back Benjamin Pavard, on the other hand, was much more defensive, while Joshua Kimmich and Leon Goretzka formed a pair in midfield.
We already know all of this.
From Nagelsmann's predecessor, Hansi Flick.
Nagelsmann even keeps the typical tactical changes during the game tight.
On Saturday evening there was a piece of paper with instructions on it, which found its way from the dugout to the field, but the sender was not Nagelsmann, but Marsch.
Nagelsmann was once criticized by his own striker for overwhelming the team with constant adjustments.
So far there can be no question of that in Munich.
"That always causes a bit of unrest among the players."
Nagelsmann called his first few weeks at FC Bayern “a tightrope walk”.
The 34-year-old is struggling with himself, on the one hand wants to bring his ideas about playing football, on the other hand "the team has won eight titles in two years with the way they play," said Nagelsmann.
Trying to convey a new idea to such a team "always creates a bit of unrest among the players."
A development can already be seen in the small things.
Nagelsmann's start at Bayern was bumpy, there was no win in the preparatory games, the team started in the Bundesliga with a draw against Mönchengladbach and a 3-2 against Cologne, the defensive seemed fragile in each case.
Not a whole new problem.
Last season was the first since 2008/2009 in which Bayern conceded more than 40 hits.
Nagelsmann has now stabilized that defense.
In Leipzig, the defensive duo Dayot Upamecano / Lucas Hernández made a strong impression, the team as a whole could hardly be countered by the fast RB attackers.
But the Bavarians who won in Leipzig are largely similar to the Bavarians who became champions under Flick last season.
Nagelsmann's team is not yet
his
.
"But when do we develop further?"
That worries him.
He "didn't rejoice" at the result, he said on Saturday evening.
At the moment, he often sits at home and thinks about how many new things he can bring in the coming training week and how many tried and tested things are needed, said Nagelsmann on Saturday evening.
So far, when in doubt, he has relied on the tried and tested.
"But when do we develop further?" He asked.
There aren't many coaches who claim to want to develop a winning team.
In any case, the constellation is a rare one in football: that a team that almost always wins gets a new coach with new ideas.
Wanting to change something that actually works is always a danger.
This has happened before in Munich, when Pep Guardiola inherited the triple winner Jupp Heynckes in the summer of 2013.
The Catalan convinced the professionals of his game idea, the Bayern team became a Guardiola team.
But that took months.
And Guardiola came to Munich as a two-time Champions League winner.
Nagelsmann did not win a title in professional football before moving to Munich.
Taking the time to gradually incorporate your own approaches therefore seems to be a wise strategy by Nagelsmann.
A successful start to the season should give him the calm he needs to make tactical changes.
Whether Nagelsmann's start at FC Bayern is a successful one is not decided by victories in Leipzig, which are not unusual at FC Bayern.
But more likely on Tuesday in the Champions League.
Bayern Munich is playing at FC Barcelona.
In the last duel between the two teams, the Munich team scored eight goals, a victory that will always be associated with the name Hansi Flick, a game for the history books.
For Nagelsmann, there is still a long way to go.
